Twoway Mirror
by Tripadelic
Summary: Takes place post-Lorwardian invasion. Kim's perceptions of good and evil are a bit black and white, but she makes a discovery which colors her world in grey.  rated for language- KiGo later
1. Prologue  The wool over your eyes

Kim Possible is owned by the Disney Corporation. This fiction is not intended as copyright infringement, but fanwork. Please, don't sue me, please.

Prologue: The wool over your eyes

"Hey! Shego!"

If there was one thing she truly believed, it was that "the only constant in life is change; and time has a way of changing people." She pondered this as she sat petulantly upon the stack of crates in the dim warehouse, ignoring the persistent bark of her rival on the ground below. The pale wood groaned and creaked almost inaudibly as she shifted her weight to cross her legs. She remained quiet, her attention barely retained by the magazine in her hand, chin delicately propping on her other palm, her elbow settling on her knee.

"Shego!" she was called a second time.

She dragged her eyes away from the magazine long enough just to glance at the challenger, quipping with a tone that implied disinterest, "Kim," before returning to her reading material.

Confusion was palpable in the air for a moment, and the girl below was silent. Hero extraordinaire, Kim Possible, adjusted her aggressive stance, easing one hand back to her side and giving her ginger locks a toss back over her shoulder with the other. She made an attempt to recompose herself, "Uhm," a beat of hesitation. "The hell? We gonna do this? Ron's foiling Drakken's scheme, so," she drew out the 'o', her voice trailing off with the implication that action should be taken.

Shego's eyes rolled with an exaggerated sigh, turning her head just enough to look straight down into the eyes of the younger woman, only flashing that typical, smarmy smirk for a second, "Such _language_, Kimmie. No. Not in the mood."

"I don't-"

"Don't! Care! if you don't believe me, Pumpkin," the raven-haired villain cut her off before she could continue, the statement finalizing, her tone sing-song, gaze cast back to the article resting in her palm.

There was another thrum of disbelieving silence, before Kim clenched her fists and jumped to the nearest crate, charging her way up the jagged incline, her reflexes allowing her to compensate for the instability of the growing-in-height towers. Once she was at the right elevation, she lunged across the gap between herself and her pale-green nemesis, kicking right past her to send the crate beside the woman crashing into another stack; a few tumbled down behind them, eliciting a huge crash. The redheads mane whipped around her neck as she spun to face Shego, standing above her hunched form on the next box over, eying the single-most-qualified person to duke it out with Kim fucking Possible. The Super hadn't so much as flinched.

"I'll be dipped. You're telling the truth," the younger womans fists planted firmly against her hips as she cocked her posture poignantly.

Her elder snorted softly at the use of "dipped". "In what?" she snarked, though it was halfhearted.

It took a moment for her to notice, but from this angle, up close, she realized that Shego looked tired, bags under her eyes, expression slack. This was... odd. She couldn't remember a time when Shego just looked "ordinarily" exhausted- like her mother when she had a long night at the hospital, or her father, when he was wrapped up in a project. Kim once again relaxed slightly, head tilting inquisitively, "Are you okay?"

Shego lifted a slender eyebrow, the other sinking as her eyes grew in size, turning slowly to look up at the girl to her right, clearly incredulous of the question. "Wh-what?" she chortled as she spoke.

Kims cheeks flushed and she crossed her arms, looking away, to anything, anywhere else, mortified, "Jeeze! Sorry I asked."

The older womans face eased a bit when she felt the wave of the youngers embarrassment, replacing her skeptical mask with her more trademark smirk, "I'm fine, Princess."

The ginger-haired heroine glanced at her rival from the corner of her eye, meeting her gaze, her own skepticism thick. She hesitated as her angry blush cooled, "Okay."

It only lasted a split-second, but their hearts leaped into their throats, hammering in their ears, mouths parched.

"Shegoooo!"

"Kiiiiiiim!"

The howls of their companions snapped the moment in twain, a small explosion rocking the facilities, causing the storage boxes to rattle and sway slightly. Each woman deftly made their way down without a second thought, splitting ways once they hit the floor, headed toward the cries of their individual partners.

Kim dashed out the double-doors she came in through, nearly crashing into her BFF-sidekick. Stumbling a bit as they grabbed each others forearms for balance, she looked into his dirt-smudged, freckled face for an explanation.

"I stopped him, but he got away! We gotta get outta here, KP!" the blond squawked.

Her non-verbal response was to take a grip on his wrist and make a break for the exit, walls crumbling around them.

Shego, however, had made a break for a ground floor window, looping around to a side entrance, to find her employer slipping out, "SHEG-EUACH!" She snagged Doctor Drakken by the collar of his coat, effectively ending his bothersome noise-making, and dragged him away to the hoverpod outside, letting him trip and stumble backwards behind her.

As each pair made it to safety, Shego piloting the hoverpod above, Kim pulling out her communicator from her pocket, they glanced (up and down, respectively) to one another. Shego mouthed, "thanks," before jetting off to escape ahead of the heroes help arriving.


	2. Chapter 1  Into the loop

Kim Possible is owned by the Disney Corporation. This fiction is not intended as copyright infringement, but fanwork. Please, don't sue me, please.

Chapter 1: Into the loop

As Kim slid through the ducts of Doctor Drakkens newest lair, the small beam from her flashlight bouncing off the metal around her, her communicator gave a little twitch in her pocket, and she quickly retrieved it, silencing it's call with haste. '_Shit, these GJ uniforms are stifling,_' the thought whirred through her mind, her hand tugging the collar of her navy, long-sleeved top. She paused for a moment to check the map, looking down the duct to her left as she put the device away, and rested her head against her forearms. Closing her eyes against the heat, she thought back to the last time she encountered her rival, a month ago. Shego hadn't been herself. Feeling a little out of touch, the nineteen-year-old hoped that the villain was back to normal. An evil Shego, at the very least, was a lively one.

After the Lorwardian invasion, she had been disappointed. The idea that the ebony-haired woman might just return to being a hero, as she had been back in the Team-Go days, had actually given her a sense of accomplishment, more than any previous action before. It had been more than putting away the bad guys; it was was giving them a chance to reform, to be accepted by the world. But... well, she couldn't say she was surprised when Drakken (eventually- after a months effort, to his credit) rejected the idea, returning to villainy. She probably shouldn't have been surprised by Shego's return either. However, that fact didn't stop the little pang of pain that shot through her stomach the first time she was sent to stop the duo, a year-and-a-half ago, since they had all worked as a team to save the fate of humanity.

Lifting her head and wiping the bullets of sweat that raced down her jawline with the back of her gloved hand, she began to crawl again, trying to keep her movements fluid, quiet, to remain undetected. It was odd though- some part of her was telling her that this mission wasn't right. It was dark when she crossed over the vents, and she couldn't hear a peep from outside the metal shafts.

She stopped again, sighing as she once more withdrew the comm from her pocket, tapping the bud in her left ear to patch in to her long-time tech expert, Wade Loade.

"Yeah, Kim?" his voice buzzed through the earbud, his rounded face flickering in on the screen of the little teal box.

"Wade, something is wrong here," she hushed her voice, licking her dry lips, her tongue feeling barren and heavy. She swallowed hard, "Everything is quiet. Who did you say put in this hit on the site?"

The muffled sound of fingertips tickering away at a keyboard was briefly present, "Oh.. hrmm.." The young mans dark eyebrows folded.

"Hmm?" the redhead inquired, "'Hrmm' what?"

"Well, it's not anonymous. It's just signed, 'J.S.' But... it's unclear _where_ it came from." The boy put emphasis on "where".

"You can't track it?"

"There's... not an IP address," his voice was hesitant, expression puzzled. He began typing furiously after a beat of complete silence.

Kim blinked, carefully measuring the situation at hand, and pondering her options. What was this? A trap? '_No, no way._' Drakken wasn't that clever. But somebody else might be...

Shego.

"Wade, I'm going ahead to the coordinates you set."

"W-wait, Kim," his tone was slightly startled, "You don't even have Ron with you. If this is a trap-"

"That's what I'm counting on. I can handle it, Wade. I just need to see if I can figure this out."

"I... alright, alright. I _trust_ that if you get into trouble, you'll hit me up." His tone held the implications of an order.

"You know I know when to get out."

Her attempts to console him urged a sigh, and he closed his eyes with a curt nod, blue-black hair tussling, "Okay. Buzz me if you need me. I'm here."

The young woman nodded. With renewed vigor, she tossed her hair over her shoulder. If it was, indeed, a trap set by Shego, then she could get this little sense of worry off her shoulders- even _if_ she had to make a retreat.

The map buzzed her once more to tell her to turn right, and she nearly tumbled down a long drop in the ducts, before finally arriving at a room with a light on- she could see beams passing through the vent ahead of her. Pressing her ear against the metal of the air-shaft, she listened closely, holding her breath. She could hear faint swearing, a female voice, though muted.

'_Yes, yes, yes!_' an internal cheer, at the familiarity. She took a deep breath, steadied her nerves and began to slink forward, taking extra care not to give away her position. Finally encroaching on the vent, she oh-so-cautiously removed the cover, biting her lower lip as she set it down, praying for the metal not to clatter. Success! Her heart began to race as her adrenal gland started pumping the intoxicating chemical into her blood stream. Her stomach churned, heat rolling off of her in waves, getting into position to drop to the floor, maybe twenty feet from the source of the cussing.

When she hit the ground, she was expectant of the trap. However, the sound of her feet hitting the floor proved that none but her pistachio-skinned enemy were present; no henchmen rushing out, no Drakken screaming for her to be taken.

Suddenly everything felt very slow, timed, the redhead taking in the scene playing out before her. The adrenaline coursing through Kim's veins made her shake as Shego spun to face her, her eyes wide, jaw slack in shock, fingers closing into her palm, crushing the small object in her hand. Emerald eyes buzzed with discord, olive oculars reflecting the very same emotion back as they locked gazes.

Then the world sped back up. Shego looked to the device in her hand, decimated, then quickly to the mad Doctors invention behind her, a wrench clattering from her other hand to the tiles below. The room spun as she went on a high from the concoction of nerves and chemistry in her brain flooding her body, and she staggered a step back.

The redhead stared, wide-eyed at the object in her rivals hand, mouth open, flabbergasted. Was she seeing what she _thought_ she was seeing? Her lips moved to speak, but all that came out was a childish, high-pitched, strangled, "Uh!"

Shego blanched, her words quick, "It'snotwhatitlookslike!" She flung her arms in desperation, the object resting in her palm hammering when it hit the wall. She flinched, looking behind her at the blue scientists most recent scheme; the insides weren't destroyed- she intended to put it back together. The elder woman tried to lie, "I was making a repair!"

"No," the youngers head shook furiously, confusion present in her expression, "No, you weren't!" When did her legs become so unstable? The girl staggered back, bumping into a repair bench, fingers latching onto the edge for support. Even through her flaming red hair, she couldn't take her eyes off of the other woman. "You... you didn't set this up? You didn't set this up!" She barked her thoughts aloud, "Where the hell is Drakken? What is this?"

In the time it took for Kims composure to fall, Shego regained a bit of hers, her face contorting to a stern, cool mask. Inside her head, her mind was racing, '_ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuck_.' She was caught, and she knew it. Despite trembling knees, she turned back to the device behind her, setting a hand on it. She didn't trust herself to speak yet.

A potent air of discomfort settled over the pair. It took a moment before the Super raised her voice.

"Nobody was supposed to know. Of course I didn't set this, set _you_, up."

"Supposed to know? That you're sabotaging Drakken?"

A pointed pause.

"Yes."

Another long, drawn out silence. A pin could have dropped anywhere in the base, and they would have heard it.

"Why?" Kim breathed, eyes like those of a lost puppy.

"Time changes people, Pumpkin."


End file.
